Usually, you can't miss him.

Erik Green rides a double-decker bike — a dark blue frame stacked on top of a copper-colored one.

It's that unusual structure the English senior said saved him from serious injury Monday afternoon.

While riding along Grand River Avenue, Green approached the crosswalk near Taco Bell at the corner of Bailey Street and Grand River Avenue. He said he honked his bike horn while pedaling toward the intersection to alert the driver of a stopped blue Saturn.

"They both thought they made some eye contact," East Lansing police Lt. Kim Johnson said.

The car struck the lower bike frame, missing Green's legs but sending him to the pavement. His head bounced when it smacked the ground, witnesses said.

The men in the car shouted to see if Green was OK, then drove off, said Green, who contributes columns to The State News.

Witnesses wrote down the license plate number and said the three men in the car laughed as they left the scene.

"We just talked about how awesome it is to ride that, and then all of a sudden I saw this car," said Jennifer Whiteside, a computer sciences and engineering junior who saw the incident. "It's unbelievable how they didn't seem to care."

Police originally responded to a call for someone leaving the scene of an accident, but at about 2:30 p.m., shortly after the accident, the men returned to the scene and identified themselves to officers. The driver was issued a ticket for failing to yield to a bicyclist. Police did not release the driver's name.

Green said he's usually careful at intersections and often sounds the horn because people react to the unusual height of his bicycle.

He left the scene with minor injuries, including scraped elbows and knees and bent sunglasses.

"Everyone keeps telling me I'm thickheaded," he said. "I guess it's true."

The bike also was in good shape. Holding a blood-spotted tissue to his elbow, Green thanked the witnesses for sticking around.

"I might walk the bike home," he said.